Tyres & Accessories June 2009
June's issue of Tyres & Accessories is now available to download and for virtual reading. This issues' features include: Retail Chains & Buying Groups, Industrial Tyres and ATV Tyres:
Industrial Tyres
June's issue of Tyres & Accessories is now available to download and for virtual reading. This issues' features include: Retail Chains & Buying Groups, Industrial Tyres and ATV Tyres:
During this past year operating costs have, more than ever, become a prevalent theme within the materials handling industry. Awareness of the need to rein in these expenses wherever possible is strong, and efforts to this effect are being paired with attempts to maximise productivity. Such heightened sensitivity to costs has led to ever more operators carefully monitoring tyre costs over the entire life of the tyre in order to select the most cost effective tyre for each specific application.
Since the recent appointment of Ian Smith as managing director, West Midlands based industrial tyre wholesaler NDI Tyre & Tube Supplies has begun a new chapter in the company’s growth within the UK market. Smith began in his new role on March 2 and brings with him more than two decades of industry experience, including 21 years at Pirelli.
NDI states that it will now concentrate more actively upon working closer with its parent company, Denmark’s Nordisk Dæk Import AS. This leading Scandinavian wholesaler of wheels and tyres, founded in 1970, is already respected throughout Europe as a leading player in the market. The company is based in the town of Brørup and boasts a sizeable presence in its home market.
The latest addition to Continental’s industrial tyre portfolio is the radial ContiRV20, a product designed for what the company calls the toughest of environments – airport ground support. Three key qualities serve as important selling points for the new tyre; Conti reports the ContiRV20 delivers longer lifespan, low rolling resistance and comfortable handling at higher speeds. The manufacturer adds that this is the first time these three benefits have been combined within a single radial pneumatic industrial tyre.
According to GPX International Tire – one of the world’s leading industrial and agricultural tyre specialists – the company has recently particularly focused upon its presence in Asian markets, and executive vice president Neil Ganz reports “a huge growth in sales” has taken place there. As a result the company chose to once again exhibit at Singapore’s Tyrexpo Asia in order to further expand the growing customer relationships forged in this part of the world.
The US earthmover/off-the-road tyre market recently plateaued and is now even registering the first 'green shoots' of low level market increases, according to Luc Minguet, Michelin president earthmover and industrial tyres worldwide. According to Minguet, 2009 got off to a particularly rough start for the OTR business with OE demand plummeting 20 per cent in the first two months of the year and replacement sales down by up to 60 per cent in same period.
Despite a substantial slowdown in the agricultural sector, Trelleborg has reported a ‘positive trend’ for high-performance agricultural tyres during the first quarter of this financial year. This area of strength contrasted with sales of industrial tyres, which declined sharply during the quarter. Overall, Trelleborg Wheel Systems experienced a 1.25 per cent decline in organic sales during the period and a one per cent drop in total sales after taking exchange-rate effects into account – down to SEK 950 million (£76.6 million).
In publishing the Trelleborg Group’s 2008 annual report, company president and CEO Peter Nilsson has commented that Trelleborg faces major challenges, but it can draw strength from its enhanced market positions. “2008 was a turbulent year in many ways,” said Nilsson. “An economic slowdown was anticipated by many, but nobody could foresee how rapid it would be. Following a favourable trend in the first three quarters of 2008, the downturn in the fourth quarter was dramatic.
Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations (BATO) has marked the official opening of its new tyre distribution centre in Jacksonville, Florida. The centre’s opening, says BATO, marks the latest step in its North America distribution centre modernisation programme.
With a capacity of more than a million tyres, ranging from small passenger and industrial tyres to those for medium and heavy-duty commercial vehicles, the Jacksonville centre will supply tyres and automotive parts to Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. In addition, the distribution centre will supply the entire United States with tyres produced in Latin America, and the eastern half of the United States with tyres from Japan and the wider Asia region.
Trelleborg Wheel Systems has revealed that it plans to close its Hartville, Ohio plant on or within two weeks of 10 May. According to local business news sources, the wheel systems manufacturer filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with state authorities on 12 March, confirming that operations at the site would cease and that its 90 employees will be made redundant.
Following three decades of its existing logo, Apollo Tyres of India is freshening up its image with a new corporate image. With a new font and black, purple, grey or orange colouring, the change is striking indeed, especially when the colours combine on the company’s circle-themed backgrounds.
“The new look brings in the vibrancy of colors and shapes, and an overall look and feel of energy to a fast growing company with global ambitions,” the company states. “The change was a felt need, given Apollo’s recent growth and expansion into new markets and products. In a sense, this change captures the evolution of Apollo Tyres from being a predominantly commercial vehicle tyre maker to a leader across diverse customer segments.”
The new logo features the company name in lower case lettering, accompanied by series of colored discs, which Apollo said makes “a strong association with tyres and mobility. The discs, in fact, represent the various kinds of tires Apollo makes. The slim to thick outlines portray passenger to industrial tyres.”
Galaxy-branded farm, forestry, agri-industrial and and OTR will be distributed exclusively by Trelleborg Wheel Systems following an agreement between the companies to form a strategic alliance. The agreement will be effective from 1 April, and covers 25 European countries: Albania, Belgium, Belarus, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Germany, Georgia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherland, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and Ukraine.
The range of Galaxy-branded pneumatic products covered by the agreement includes tyres for diverse and demanding applications such as: agricultural radial and bias, skid steer, forestry, lawn and garden, OTR, backhoe and telescopic handlers, as well as other agricultural and industrial segments. GPX will continue to market its range of Forklift Industrial, Inter-Modal port and full range of solid tyres independently.
Arcom was founded in 1996 and is run by its two partners; Artur Wilk and Robert Zieba. There are 80 staff in all and Arcom is situated in the town of Rzezawa, 45 kilometres east of Cracow. The company manufactures welded metal structures, mainly for the automotive industry. The core products are pallets, racks and carts for consumers from the tyre-manufacturing industry: tyre manufacturers, wholesale stores, warehouses and workshops. These products are used for storing all kinds of tyres, from small tyres for fork lift trucks, quads, scooters and bikes, through tyres for passenger cars, off-road vehicles, delivery vans, lorries, agricultural and industrial tyres, to large-sized tyres, weighing even several hundred kgs.
For 10 years, Arcom has increased its output and market share and, in 2008, growth in excess of 20 per cent was recorded, despite the fact that production was being carried out in a plant with outdated machinery. Today, Arcom is undoubtedly a leader in tyre pallet manufacturing in Poland and is one of the top three manufacturers of these products in Europe. Exports form a major part of Arcom’s business – over 95 per cent of products are sold abroad, with customers in more than 30 countries on four continents.
Alliance Tire USA has opened a new warehouse in Portland, Tennessee, near Nashville. The new facility, said Alliance, is along the I-40 and I-65 corridor, and “allows us to easily send tyres to customers in any direction.”
“We are loading the warehouse right now with container loads of farm, forestry and industrial tyres,” says Manny Cicero, president of Alliance Tire USA. “We are now able to stockpile many of our most popular designs and sizes. Keeping key tyres in inventory helps us maintain ‘safety stock’ for our OE customers, and it helps us support our distributors around the country. Especially in these days where credit is tight and distributors are pulling back on investing in inventory, Alliance is committing money and product to the market to shorten the supply chain and to ensure product is available where and when needed.” (Tire Review/Akron)
Derbyshire-based Magna M/S Ltd has been appointed to represent the interests of Italmatic Srl, of Italy, in the UK market. Italmatic has a long association with the UK, stretching back to 1969, when the company exhibited a buffer at the London Motor Show. Today the Italmatic product portfolio includes retreading equipment, such as autoclaves, or even complete turnkey retreading installations, a range of retreading accessories (bladders, curing envelopes, buffing blades etc) and tyre shop consumables and accessories. A recent addition to the product range is a series of Comfort, superelastic industrial tyres.
Director of Magna M/S is Ian Smith, who has many years technical and hands-on experience in the tyre industry, in both new tyre manufacturing and retreading. Speaking of the new arrangement, he said: “I have a long association with Italmatic and as such understand their products and their market, having been a customer in the tyre manufacturing and automotive wheel and tyre assembly industries.” The agreement between Italmatic and Magna, he says, shows Italmatic’s commitment to the UK market.
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